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JadeBuddha

December 5, 2017 at 2:09 pm

In terms of playing a spell that costs 5 or more, let’s say I’m a warlock and use Bloodbloom to make a Siphon Soul cost 6 health instead of 6 mana. Would that still allow me to cast the Arcane Tyrant for 0, or does it only work with spells that cost mana?

This seems like it has potential. Casting free minions is good, but we have two interesting parallels to compare it to: Happy Ghoul and Thing From Below. While Happy Ghoul saw SOME play, it ultimate left, as a 3/3 wasn’t competitive enough and wasn’t as convenient as people wanted it to be to get out. Thing From Below, is of course still an amazing card, and it was one that you could build up to be 0 cost over time, so you could start your turn with it that way. This one… doesn’t compare with either of them in that light. It can’t be 0 cost at the start of the turn like TFB, and the effect that it needs to pull off is more impactful but more expensive than Happy Ghoul. I’m a little stumped on this thing. It seems like the classes that would be most able to run it are Druid and Mage, since they have the best expensive spells, but it doesn’t sound like something they’d really want to put in their deck; not really an impactful enough card. Pally might want it; they’ve got Spikeridge Steed and they like to have free minions to buff/flood the board. If a token-ish aggro Pally becomes popular again, this might see its way into that deck. Otherwise, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Poor in arena for the most part where expensive spells are probably uncommon, but when it goes off is big enough to turn the tide.

This creature is ridiculous in every deck that plays expensive spells. In Jade Druid this is a ridiculous upgrade, as now both Nourish and UI will also give board presence, a major weakness of the deck. UI especially is much better as getting free 4/4 and a 5/5 means that you will rarely lose the board. Unless a dominating aggro deck shows up, this card will return Jade Druid to tier 1. Simply because of this, Arcane Tyrant is a 5/5 card.

The concern I have is that by the time Druid is dropping Nourish and UI, how relevant is a 4/4, even if it’s free? And it isn’t entirely “free” either because it takes up a deck slot. Is this efficient enough for Druid to even care and clear out that deck slot for this guy? I think there’s a fair chance that it simply isn’t efficient enough for Druid to even notice it.

Of course. Jade Druid’s main weakness is having to ramp/draw in the mid-game without developing board presence. This makes the payoff, UI much more swingy, as the weakness of UI is that it only removes 1 thing and creates 1 thing, allowing your opponent to go wide. This will allow you to go wide as well. Also, Nourish for draw becomes much better with this, as does Spreading Plague. Do not underestimate free 4/4s. Also, not that Druid now has yet another highroll, ramping into Nourish + double Arcane Tyrant on turn 4 is pretty busted. Also, this prevents you from overdrawing with UI as well, which is helpful. In the worst place you can still play it on turn 5 instead of just hero-powering, which is still fine.

Other than Druid, Tempo Mage can also abuse this card. Free 4/4s are very helpful in tempo decks, and its an elemental to boot.

As for taking up deck spots. Thats really not that valuable. Jade Druid has multiple flex slots, and this card is quite high on the power curve.

Only for a few months – first expansion of 2018 the Jades rotate out of standard – so that’s Jade Druid dead.

As does Mire Keeper so, with Jade Blossom, that’s 2 ramp cards down which hits Ramp Druid. Not to mention the loss of Y’Shaarj and Deathwing Dragonlord (and to a lesser extent Kun) – which is probably going to kill Big Druid.

Patches the Pirate, Enchanted Raven, Mark of Y’Shaarj and Mark of the Lotus also go which hits Token Druid.

It doesn’t really matter _that_ much that this card could be horrible with the current Druid Archetypes as they’re pretty much all going to be trashed in about 3 months whereas this’ll be around for another 15 months in standard.

You mentioned Druid and Mage but what about Warlock?
You can play Twisting Nether (Or Siphon Soul) followed by two Arcane Tyrants or you can pair up Rin’s seals with a couple of Arcane Tyrants to make up for some tempo loss
You can go the extra mile and play Argus Defender to taunt up the demon and Arcane Tyrant to avoid damage to the face

There’s some merit to playing this with Twisting Nether, you’re right (though I’m not sure it’s exactly the kind of thing Warlock wants to do, especially because there aren’t a lot of other Warlock Spells that pair up with this card, so if you don’t have Twisting Nether/Siphon Soul/draw this card early, it’s a pretty dead card).

Rin is an amusing but horrible hard, so there’s no merit to pairing this with the seals.

Bro are you dense? This instantly becomes free if you play a big spell so you don’t lose tempo while still getting off a powerful effect. This is so much better than prophet, which you have to hold in your hand for several turns before it even becomes a below average minion.

Definetely i will use it in my Big Druid. Really useful, when you play ultimate infestation and you draw a lot of cards and also after nourish or even after spreading plague. I dont know if it´s worth for competitive, but at least i´ll definetly use this cards for fun.

Hmm. I really like with nourish or even if sprint makes a comeback. There’s something about drawing three cards and being able to immediately play 1-2 for free that tickles me. A great card to play after vanish also. This guy on board. Vanish. Play him again free. Great for enabling rogue combos.

Would this work with preparation on an expensive spell or would it no longer satisfy the condition?

Your correct. Preparation would reduce the cost of the spell making it not 5 mana anymore. Its like how Atiesh will make a 3 mana creature even though teh original spell before teh cost reduction was 6 mana.

Ok so this clearly can see some play in turns where you absolutely need big board clear followed by some board presence.
The bad side is that its a dead card up to turn 5 which by then you may be too far behind.
But huge tempo swings with cards like firelands portal . And having the elemental tag which allows for maybe a Blazecaller to follow up ?
Interesting card i wish it wasnt epic though since epics now seem more rare than legendary. And wasting 800 dust to playtest and realize it was a mistake feels bad.

0-mana 4/4 could be great in Arena with a decent deck to build around it. In constructed? I’m not so sure. It IS an Elemental, so there’s some synergy there, but it also requires big spells which currently Elemental decks don’t typically run. I’m not sure about this card. I guess Mages have gotten a few Elementals, so Elemental Mage with DK could be a thing, just sprinkle in say a Blizzard, Flamestrike, and a couple Firelands Portals and it could work.